


If You See Light

by ntzsche



Series: If You See Light [1]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Daddy Issues, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Loss of Innocence, M/M, On the Run, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9532244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntzsche/pseuds/ntzsche
Summary: As a kid, the world above was a source of unfathomable wonder and possibility. But when Dave finds that Vault Door suddenly slammed shut behind him, he realizes he was an idiot. He still has to find his dad, though, and he gets lucky enough to come across others willing to help keep his naivety from getting him killed while he's at it. He's got a lot to learn about surviving the Capital Wasteland.





	1. Shut Out

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added as story progresses. Story starts off very tame, but will wind through some dark, heavy, a violent events. Such is the Wasteland.
> 
> This story is based on an old role playing idea that was never really played out, but has always amused me - thus all these original characters. Now it works as just a bit of backstory I'm writing to keep myself entertained. Half of the characters are mine, half are not, though I hope I do them some justice. <3

There was a squeak-crack of the rickety wooden screen door slamming shut behind him. Deeper still inside the cave came the tectonic rumble of a far heavier door, and it shut with a sound that was absolute, and devastating.

Dave was momentarily blind in the cloudy daylight, true sunlight hitting his retinas for the first time in his nineteen years before he screwed them shut and doubled over. He still heaved and wheezed from his panicked flight, ribs straining to work despite what he prayed was just a stitch and not a gunshot wound in his side. He fell onto his ass, kicking his legs out in front of him and leaning back against the screen door. Even with his glasses, and his hands shielding his eyes, dust kicked up from an unwelcomed breeze, sticking to his damp eyes and face and making him spit.

He slowly lowered his hands, and squinted through his smudged lenses at the alien landscape in front of him. It was brown and grey and green, but not in the way he had hoped. The world was nothing like it had spared in all those nostalgic pictures and holotapes. It was green as if the very ground were sick. Two hundred years, and there had been no apparent healing since the bombs fell. There were no flowers, no leaves. The grass was sparse, yellow, and withered, the trees gnarled and barren. There were old houses in the distance, and a crumpling trail that was once an asphalt road, but these signs of civilization were tragic in the same foreboding way as a withered, bleached cow skull found by a lost man in the desert. There was no sign of life, from where he sat at the mouth of the cave all the way to the visible horizon. 

“ _... Sh-shiiiiiit,_ ” he sobbed, pitifully allowing himself the profanity he never used. He let his hands slide down his face, and finally groped along his side. He checked his fingertips a few times but there was no blood. He couldn’t find so much as a tear in his vault suit. Nonetheless he shuddered, and his panting breath hitched with welling misery. He had just been _shot at_ , by men he had known all his life. They were ready to kill him, for what Dad did - whatever the hell that was, beyond destroying the safety and security of the vault in breaching the door when he suddenly left, letting the radroaches rush in and the Overseer lose his mind, causing him to sic the security on anyone involved, anyone who might know where he went, or just anyone who happened to be in the wrong tunnel at the wrong time. He didn’t know the men working security could be capable of such mindless viciousness - Park and Wolfe, O’Brien and Richard, even Stevie Mack - any of them. Alcoholism, bullying, poor disposition were one thing, but cold-blooded murder? And Dave had no idea what could be happening back there, still. The vault door had rolled into place even as Wolfe cursed and wildly shot after him as he slipped out the door, out of vengeance for having the door opened again. They could have just as easily turned those guns on Amata, standing there, unarmed and with her pip boy connected to the door controls. Her father might be Overseer, but in his rage, there was no telling what he would let them do to her. And with the door shut again, Dave might never, ever find out. He was on the surface, alone, and he could never go home.

He curled in on himself even more, pulling up his knees and sobbing into his arms as they wrapped around them. Anything out here ready to kill him could just have him, for all he cared.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Dave didn’t know how long he sat there, feeling sorry for himself. He felt like he truly earned it, even if it also made him feel like a huge, useless baby. His tears dried in dust-muddied beds on his cheeks. His eyes grew used to the light; it was really a dreary sort of day, like the sky sympathetically reflected his mood. No one ever came up the path after him - of course they didn’t, though he had held some childish hope that they would, that somehow things could be undone. Dad sure wasn’t waiting for him out here, either. He thought maybe there would be some sort of obvious tracks in the dirt, but there was a consistent windiness to the mouth of the cave. Any trace was long gone. He only had maybe a few hours head-start, but he hadn’t so much as said goodbye to him, much less told him what was going on. What could be worth abandoning him to mayhem, to the Overseer’s wrath, what could be worth risking everyone’s life and safety below? People had died for his dad, Dave nearly included, but he hadn’t so much as left a damn note. So of course he wouldn’t be waiting for him out here, either.

Eventually, Dave’s rear went numb from sitting on the rocky ground, and sniffling while he felt sorry for himself was just going to dehydrate him faster. He was out here, completely alone, and completely without any supplies. He needed water first, if he could find anything that wasn’t glowing with radiation. Then to find decent shelter, and maybe some food if he was lucky, while he got his bearings and looked for whatever trace of Dad he could find. If just to punch him in the mouth for ruining his world like this.

The crumbling roadway at the bottom of the hill led a path into a cluster of decayed homes, and cautiously Dave pulled himself together and in that direction. He peeked out of the shallow cave wearily, and as he worked his way down to the road, checked himself over again. He still had the pistol Amata had shoved at him when she had first woke him up this morning. It already seemed like that happened a lifetime ago, when it couldn’t have been more than two hours. He didn’t know if it had belonged to her dad, or if she had somehow gotten it from security staff on her way to him. Only now did Dave think to check if it was loaded, but after clumsily releasing the magazine, he found 14 neatly-stacked 10mm rounds awaiting him. It had been too hard to fire the gun at familiar faces, even when they were firing on him, but out here it was a welcome comfort. 

The loaded gun in his hand, he made his way toward the collection of houses down the hill, curiosity getting the better of him as he began to feel a bit safer, like he was the only person out here for miles. He only vaguely knew what the little boxes were, standing on crooked posts along the roadside in front of each house, and he cautiously peeled one open. He barked an anxious laugh when he found a pack of bubble gum sitting pleasantly inside the mailbox. It was so absurd, and he was so heartbroken, and the chance to laugh so welcome that it briefly overwhelmed him. He left the pack where it was.

He checked the rest of the mailboxes down the road, though, which were mostly empty except for a wad of old paper and a couple rounds of some ammo he didn’t recognize, but pocketed anyway. He felt a little braver, and stepped up to one of the skeletal houses. It looked ransacked, yet somehow untouched by man, for the two hundred years it had managed after the blast. And so small - a whole family would live in this little box, with a pair of chairs in one room, and the remains of a bed in the next? Maybe it was hardly bigger than the living quarters he and his father shared in the Vault, but without the vast accommodations of the rest of the underground facility, it seemed so small.

The other houses were nearly the same, in varying states of decay. They all looked like a stiff breeze or an unlucky step could topple them over, and were barren of anything he thought may be useful. Dave continued down the road until he got to a crossroads in the center of the little neighborhood, looking down the forking path. Opposite the houses, one corner held some sort of service building called the ‘Red Rocket’, and as he looked it over a blast of noise echoed from inside its nearest wall and made him jump out of his skin. He had nowhere to bolt, and only stumbled backwards as something moved through the doorway toward him.

But the sound was electrical, and what he ridiculously thought at first was a floating head, turned out to be a eyebot. He had never seen one with his own eye before, only in pre-war movies and old advertisements. For being created two centuries before, the floating circular robot looked much the same, antenna sticking out and making it look oddly insectoid, it’s round speaker face playing what sounded like some staticy, orchestral, patriotic song like he had heard in old films. Dave looked nervously around for anything or anyone else, but the bot appeared to be alone, pleasantly but aimlessly hovering about the abandoned station. Dave crept forward, wearily giving the bot a wide berth - he remembered from the holotapes he had seen that they were outfitted with lasers, though this one seemed unthreatened by him - and explored the station. There was trash and debris scattered throughout, but looked as if someone had camped out in the spot before.

Dave looked it all over slowly, and cautiously. He had no idea about the world out here and what life must be like, how many people may even exist. The campsite looked old, years old maybe. There were empty tins of cram and potato crisps, just as they so commonly ate in the vault. But did that mean there was no new food? That whatever could be found out here was only the heavily processed, pre-packaged stuff like they had stored away in the massive vault warehouses? Maybe the soil didn’t just look sick, maybe it was so heavily irradiated that nothing would grow again. It made life above ground seem so bleak.

There were bits of old cigarettes, and a small metal lighter. A space had been cleared and flattened, the rough size of a man. An empty box of ammo. Some useless junk, knocked over and picked through, lining the shelves nearby. Nothing else worth noting, or keeping.

Back outside, the eyebot was doing a slow circle around a red sign at the edge of the road juncture. The song was over, and some pre-recorded man was speaking. Claiming to be the President, of all things. Again, Dave made a nervous laugh, but it didn’t seem like anything worth paying attention to. Yesterday, it would have been fascinating to him, but right now he was desperate for something to give him direction to anything resembling the safety and security he had just so abruptly lost.

And that was a giant piece of deteriorated wood - like a door or chunk of drywall, it was too worn to tell - posted near the station with the hand-painted word, ‘Megaton’, and an arrow pointing toward a road running up a hill. It sounded worryingly like both a warning of danger and like a place you would want pointed out to you. It was something human, and recent, and having an arrow to follow gave him comfort even if he had no idea what he would find.

He hadn’t walked in that direction long before he saw it. Some large, hulking metal wall growing behind a rocky path. He saw more and more of it as he drew closer, a man on top of what a giant door, a robot out front swiveling and calling out generic greetings to no one in particular. Dave was immediately afraid of the sight, but his fear was a dull constant now. Nothing happened as he cautiously stepped forward, and he found himself welcomed through the large door of the sheet-metal town.


	2. First Few Desperate Hours

By the time Dave laid down in a bed that night, he knew, for sure, that he was a complete idiot. Like, a total, certifiable, too-dumb-for-this-world sort of idiot.

Everyone in Megaton had pointed him to Colin Moriarty, tucked contently in his saloon. Sheriff Simms had even pityingly warned him that the man was a money-grubbing cheat, and was not to be trusted. The first problem, of so many, was that Dave didn’t really understand the value of a cap. He didn’t even understand that of all the things for the post-apocalyptic world to chose as currency why it was something as childish as nuka cola bottle caps. He understood mathematics, and economics, and bartering - things that Vault Tec included in the basic school curriculum despite how pointless it was when everyone in the vault received rations. He was still in such a state of relief at discovering civilization that he naively thought something as small as a bit of information would be free. So when Moriarty offered to tell him something for 100 caps, Dave had no idea what that meant, or how hard it would be to make that sort of money - immediately putting him in the position to get completely taken advantage of.

Because suddenly it wasn’t 100 caps, it was 300. That he had to get from going after some woman, and collecting a debt. A debt that meant leaving the city back to the barren neighborhood outside the vault, where a woman had been hiding in one of the houses he hadn’t checked. She had nearly killed Dave before recognizing by the terrified expression on his face that he was of absolutely no harm to her. In fact, she came out of all this pretty well, because Dave had only served as a warning that Moriarty knew just where to find her. For his troubles, she assured Dave she wasn’t about to give him a damn thing. The wasteland sucks, kid. Get used to it.

Dave had come back to Megaton without a cap, and managed to string together a story to Moriarty about her being gone. He didn’t know if the man even bought it, but they both knew he was broke, and Dave had left the saloon in a sour mood with no idea of what to do next.

From the balcony of the tallest building in the crater settlement, the place really was sort of fascinating. Walls and buildings built mostly out of metal scraped from airplanes, surrounding an detonated nuclear bomb. There was even a cult group who worshiped the terrifying thing - and rumor had it, it was still live. There had been a lot of talk recently about trying to find someone with the expertise to disable it. Despite looking rough and distrusting, people were surprisingly friendly and genuine, if just to curiously poke and prod at the soft, pasty vault kid. Dave didn’t blame them, and appreciated what conversation there was to have. They humored his painfully obvious and basic questions, and had even pointed him in the direction of work.

He found Walter - a kind, weathered-looking maintenance man and likely the oldest resident in town - who agreed to pay him to do some basic repairs on the water and plumbing system. It was tedious but simple enough, but Dave knew a few hours work wouldn't be enough to pay off the wretched man who made it clear he knew nothing until some money “refreshed” his memory. Instead he got himself a greasy meal at a small shop near the bomb, the Brass Lantern, some runny rice and bean soup and something called squirrel bits, though had never seen the animal before and felt too dumb asking. He wandered the crater after that, feeling a bit queasy with the unfamiliar food in his belly - whether from the radiation or squeamishness, he didn't know. He watched the residents of the town go about their routines, hoping to glean some new understanding about life on the surface from observing them, but all Dave felt was painfully, profoundly alone.

He missed Amata. She had been his best friend since they were in diapers. They had spent so much time talking about this, imagining and playing out what life was like up here, what they would do if ever given the chance to leave the vault. They always fancied themselves brave explorers, builders and creators, problem solvers. He wished she was here. Desperately hoped she wasn't hurt. And beneath all the hurt was an increasingly dark and seething anger at Dad for causing all of this that made Dave uncomfortable.

When it felt overwhelming, Dave forced his mind elsewhere, and focused on keeping busy. He had been told he could find a free bed in the Common House, on the east side of the city near the church. It was a large, three-story shack, the sheet metal walls and framework more haphazardly constructed than the residential homes. But it was a bed, and a roof, and above all, some sort of safety. Even with his minimal knowledge, Dave knew it was a blessing, and better than most people in this Capital Wasteland could get when they had so little.

There were a few other people there, two men and an older woman. Saving up caps to buy hard-to-come-by housing in the town, or just passing through. The woman looked the most capable of them all, strong and weathered, perfectly comfortable falling asleep with her layered armor with a few bags of property tucked beneath her cot mattress to make a pillow, drying laundry hanging like a curtain along the top bunk of her corner bed. In the other corner were the scarce belongings of one of the men, older than Dave, sporting a thick beard over an ruddy, ill-looking face. He avoided eye contact and chain-smoked quietly to himself on the second floor balcony, and didn't seem to sleep much. The other man looked young to Dave, either still just a kid or grown and too malnourished, he couldn’t tell. He watched him silently from his own bunk across the two rows of beds, but not in a way that bothered Dave. It was probably just the uncommonly clean, bright blue vault suit that Dave still wore, drawing just as much attention as it had all day. He wanted to make enough caps for Moriarty to tell him what he needed to know, but getting some new clothes was going to need to be up there on his priority list, too. 

Dave pointedly ignored curious gaze now, his mood and his stomach soured, thoughts of his own stupidity rapidly becoming self-pity. He curled up on one of the cots with a blankets and tucked himself under with his boots still on. He had no idea what he would do tomorrow, and felt like he had proved to himself and others that he was as simple and stupid is you could expect from someone who crawled out of a hole in the ground. Even now, sheltered with a free bed, he felt nearly as terrified as he had that morning, just in a dull and constant sort of way. He had no idea how to take care of himself out here, and had marked himself for a fool and he had let everyone in this town know about it. 

He had no idea how he could have done it differently. Self defense was one thing, but he couldn't have killed that woman Moriarty had sent him after, not even if they would forgive him of Dad’s crimes and let him back in Vault 101. But sympathy got him absolutely nowhere, with himself or anybody else. 

He startled when Sheriff Simms came into the Common on his rounds. He hadn't realized his thoughts had made him so tense. The sheriff bid them all a friendly good-night, but other than a brief wave, Dave just busied himself with the pip boy on his wrist. Even after Simms had left, Dave continued to flip between screens in a last-ditch effort to keep his spiraling thoughts at bay, looking over his freshly-calibrated local map. He didn't know how - maybe there were still satellites orbiting the world, or some nearby Vault Tec tower still transmitting information. It was impressive, and useful, though if it could update itself, why couldn't it upload Dad’s pipboy location too?

Dwelling on it just got him worked up again. He grit his teeth and laid his other arm over his eyes. It took a long while still before he managed to fall into an anxious sleep.

\------------------

Dave had avoided going to Craterside Supply the day before, because he had no caps to spare to buy anything. But the next morning Sheriff Simms rather reluctantly suggested he look for work from Moira Brown, if he had nowhere else to turn. She was an excitable woman, he had warned, but was eager to meet him after hearing the news there was another person from the vault in their town.

Appreciative and extremely curious about these vault predecessors - because Simms made it sound like there has been more than just his dad - Dave walked up the creaky metal gangplanks to the trading post.

To call Moira Brown excitable had been an understatement. She had thoroughly overwhelmed Dave, immediately launching questions upon him that the otherwise bright vault dweller struggled to answer. When his responses revealed that he was uncommonly educated, he seemed to get the redhead even more worked up. But she was friendly, and not only did she have work for him, offering to pay him both in caps and supplies for his troubles, but also offered to upgrade his simple vault suit into something a bit more substantively armored up front. Without any better options, he agreed. To be honest the idea of a survival guide book seemed to be a good idea - Dave was certainly in desperate need of good advice. Though she had been sort of exhausting, he found himself really liking the woman.

It wasn't until he was on his way out that he saw the Vault 101 suit on the wall near the door. At first he thought it must have been Dad’s, sold off to Moira to rid himself of the beacon that it made of him. But it was too slim, and short, looked way more faded, and was sewn and strapped with pieces of armor to make it look like something worth wearing out here - an earlier prototype to the quick improvements she had made on his own suit.

When he asked, Moira casually said she had made the upgrades for a girl some ten or twelve years ago, but that she had never returned for it. For one thunderstruck moment, Dave thought maybe his Mom’s death had been a lie and she had left too, before realizing he would have been at least seven and would have remembered. But how could he have not noticed, even then, that someone in their small vault community had gone missing? How deep did the lies the Overseer kept go? The thoughts made him feel sick, and he kept them to himself, leaving the shop with a rushed and distracted goodbye.

\----------------

Moira had given Dave three tasks, and he figured he could stay in town for the first one and with the pay from this job, he could gear up for the ones that would take him beyond the walls. With a live atom bomb in the middle of town, gently leaking radiation for the local cult to enjoy, exposing him to a dangerous dose of radiation right next door to a clinic seems the best case scenario for the experiment.

So Dave stripped out of his suit and boots, leaving himself in his boxer briefs and slightly musty undershirt, wading into the small pond in the center of town to sit in the waste-deep water. He smiled a mix of cheery self-consciousness at the occasional passing townsfolk who understandably assumed the vault kid was too stupid to know he was taking a public bath in a pool of radiation. Once he explained he was a Moira Brown experiment, they would laugh or shake their heads, wish him the best and hope she was paying him well, and leave him to it. After about an hour word spread in the small town, and he became a bit of a spectacle - he even overheard two men drinking at the Brass Lantern make a bet over whether or not he survived. Needless to say, it wasn't very encouraging.

Dave nearly convinced himself once or twice to get out, unable to tell if the itchiness and the occasional wave of nausea was psychosomatic, or real. He was staring at his warped, rippled reflection with a grim expression as he began to think again about the conspiracies in Vault when someone on the scaffolding platform above him shouted down, “You ain’t done yet?”

Dave looked up, slightly surprised to see one of his roommates from the Commons leaning on the rails above him - the skinny kid around his own age, who had glanced his way but never spoken to him before.

Dave checked his pip boy, and sighed, “No.. Probably not for another hour or two.”

“Shit, you sure that crazy bitch ain't trying to kill you?” the other teen blanched.

“No, it's ok, she's got a ton of rad-away waiting up at the Supply for me. The further along the radiation sickness, the better she can understand it first-hand,” he explained calmly, soothing his own nerves, and smiled. “It'll be fine.”

“... Just need the caps that bad, huh?” the other replied, with a tone of understanding. He surprised Dave again, coming down the ramp a little and sitting at the edge, his legs dangling above Dave’s head.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” Dave grinned, obviously grateful for the company. “I don't have much need for dignity when I'm broke as a joke.”

He didn't get as much as a smile out of the other teen, but he did nod in understanding. “Dignity ain't worth much in the Wasteland.”

Dave didn't know what he really meant by that, but added, “I'm Dave, by the way.”

“I know,” the other man replied. He was quiet for a moment, and Dave began to think he wasn't going to say anything else when he added, “I’m Gabriel.. call me Gabe.”

“Sure! Nice to meet you,” Dave smiled genuinely, then grew awkward when it wasn't returned as Gabe seemed to grow quiet again. Dave looked down at himself for a moment as a wave of nausea blurred his vision, and had to blink hard to focus on the readings on his pip boy. That made him feel worse, and instead he looked across the small pond to the Child of Atom preacher, still hollering about salvation. Dave had been glad when he found out that he wasn't the only one they sounded crazy too, worshiping the two-hundred year old weapon of the apocalypse. These little bombs were nothing compared to the bigger ones that had finished off the world - the war had been nearly every vault kid's favorite subject in school, because they all fantasized about what it could be like on the surface.

“... You know what’s kinda funny?” Dave asked. He was met with silence, but continued anyway, not looking away from the bomb. “This town is called Megaton, but this bomb is probably only two or three hundred kilotons.”

Dave turned to Gabe, who looked back with a blank, deadpan expression.

“You would need like, three or four of these to make a Megaton. Your know?” he paused for a moment, before starting to feel foolish and tried explaining further, “Like, one thousand kilotons make a megaton? I mean, it’s still capable of destroying the town and causing deadly doses of radiation for twenty miles when it explodes, but a megaton is usually, like, a hydrogen bomb, not these little atom bombs..”

Still, Gabe looked at him with a now slightly bewildered expression, even when Dave laughed nervously and shrugged. Finally, he blinked and asked, “Were you gunna fix it? I know Simms talked about wanting to find someone to fix it.” He dipped his voice lower, glancing at the man rambling nearby before adding, “No matter what those nutcases say.”

“Oh, yeah, no. I don’t know anything about it.”

Gabe squinted at him in disbelief, but again, Dave shrugged. Eventually, Gabe rolled his eyes. “What was all that talk then?”

“Man, I would probably blow us all up on accident. I mean, yeah, this is little, but it would kill everyone.” Again, Dave laughed, because talking about this while sitting in the puddle of water beside the bomb making him shiver a little with nervous tension. “Like, everyone I know outside the vault. Ka-blewie.”

“.. Ka-blewie,” Gabe echoed after a brief pause, and finally opened up with a snickered. Dave grinned a little, relieved to finally get a laugh out of the quiet teen - the brief expression had made him look younger still. Then he chuckled himself, but in a nervous sort of way, because the scramble of clicks from his pip boy gave way to a shrill beep, the screen warning he now had been exposed enough to have advanced radiation sickness. The nausea made Dave feel pretty certain he was about to grow a limb out of his belly button.

_______________

Dave knew he was lucky that Gabe decided to stay, even if he was a poor conversationalist and seemed more amused than anything. Once Dave had cooked in the radiation enough to satisfy Moira’s scientific inquiry, something as simple as walking upright was a difficult task. Gabe had apparently guessed Dave would be in terrible shape when he crawled out, and had waited to help him up the metal ramps to Craterside Supply.

Moira was delighted, and Dave managed to still banter and joke with her between bouts of dry-heaving as she analyzed him and ran some tests. True to her word, she also had a cot and an IV waiting for him, with an experimental, homebrewed concoction of rad-away. Dave was so delirious that once he was laid down and hooked up, he closed his eyes for what felt like a moment, but when he opened them again, it was early evening and Gabe had slipped out without a word.

Dave didn't find him again until much later that night, when he returned to the Commons with is reward of medical chems, a slightly shuffled DNA sequence, a mild sunburn, and new supplies he had then bartered Moira for, in preparation for the next few tasks she had for him. Gabe was nowhere to be seen, but came in just before midnight. He looked immediately taken aback when Dave popped up out of a light sleep to grin at him from his bunk, calling too loudly, “Hey!”

“... Hey,” he replied, looking reluctant and in a low enough tone to hush the other man. Dave’s grin grew immediately sheepish.

“Sorry I passed out earlier, I never got to thank you,” he explained, and quieter - they had bunkmates, after all, and neither seemed the type to be forgiving.

Gabe hummed slightly as he continued to the bed he usually occupied, across from Dave. “.. I'm surprise you're up and feeling better so soon. You still look burned up,” he said, allowing some amusement into his tone.

“It’s nothing. The rad-away Moira made is actually really effective,” Dave dismissed, and startled Gabe again when he was suddenly at his side. “I know it’s not much, but I wanted to give you something, for helping me out.”

Two packs of radaway, what he now had to spare, and a pair of amber colored sunglasses. Gabe made a strange expression, and Dave quickly added, “I mean, she gave me a ton of this stuff, but I saw the glasses and I dunno, thought they would kinda suit you. I dunno, guess I wouldn’t know if you had something better.”

“No, this is cool,” he assured, almost as if just to stop his rambling, taking the things from his hand. “Thanks.”

Dave just smiled and shrugged, and turned back to his own bunk. Dave crawled back in but watched as Gabe got settled, pulling off his boots. It almost surprised him when the teen asked, “She got you doing something crazy tomorrow?”

“Not really,” Dave replied, with a bit of a laugh. “She asked me to check out a grocery store? Called the Super Duper Mart. I guess it's nearby? And she wants me to go look at this minefield west of here, and get a few mines to toy with.”

He had spoke so casually, but once he was done, realized Gabe was giving him a startled, blanching look. “What.. the fuck? That bitch is trying to kill you.”

“No she's not, I know the minefield sounds bad, but-”

“No, you big dumbass! That Super Duper Mart is going to be crawling with raiders or something, and why the hell would you want to get anywhere near a minefield? There were mines put there for a reason, and there's probably gonna be worse shit than mines waiting for you.”

Gabe stared at him hard, but when Dave looked clueless and at a loss for words, he pressed, “You just fucking crawled up here, like some big dumb baby thing, and she seriously wants you to go fuck around with radiation and raiders and mines. She's gonna get you killed.”

“Listen, I'm not that simple and useless,” Dave finally defended himself, and frowned as he straightened his glasses. “Part of looking at the grocery store is gauging if it's a good resource. And there is a trick to a mine, to disarm it. I got supplies to protect myself there and back, and I'm not about to be reckless..”

Dave trailed off as Gabe mocking repeated, “ _protect myself,_ ” and shook his head with a chuckle. “Vaultie, you ain't gonna last a week up here at this rate.”

“Watch me,” he countered, defiant.

“Might stick around to watch you blow up,” Gabe scoffed back. “But leave the grocery store alone. Raiders aren't just gonna tell at you to go away. They'll have a lot of fun killing you first.”

Dave frowned at him a moment, because he knew Gabe wasn't just trying to scare him, and he felt a chill run a course down his spine - he really had intended to just waltz up there and check it out, and could have walked right into something awful. He didn't want the younger man to see him made dumb all over again, though, and instead tried to nonchalantly lay back in his bed. He waited for Gabe to say something else, but at about the same time he realized he was pouting like a little kid, he was reminded Gabe wasn't like the kids at home, and wasn't about to humor him. He lifted his chin to glance at the other bunk, where Gabe was settled in and quiet, if not already asleep.

“... You right, man. I know you are. Thanks,” Dave found himself quietly saying. He didn't get a reply.


End file.
